Ceiling, Floor, Painting
by Flitty
Summary: Wake up, look at ceiling, look at floor, look at painting, sleep. Such a simple routine changes everything. AKA: The One Where Chell Can Speak.
1. Punching a Door Down

**I don't belong to Portal.**

* * *

"Good morning! You have been in suspension for :50: days."

Joy. Yet another simulated voice. Because I didn't hear enough of that... 50 days ago, apparently.

It doesn't feel like it's been 50 days. Probably because I've been in suspension. Weird; I'm pretty sure I destroyed the robot that used to run the place, or whatever. Maybe there was some sort of backup, which would explain the new voice.

"When you hear the buzzer, look up at the ceiling," the voice continues. I probably missed something while I was thinking.

 _Bzzt._

I look down, just to be contrary. Nothing happens, so I sigh and look up. It's a nice tiled ceiling, with the tiles that you can punch out if you jump, nothing unusual.

"Good. You will hear a buzzer. When you hear the buzzer, look down at the floor."

 _Bzzt._

I look down. The carpet has those weird patches that you get on carpets at school. I always wondered why they all look the same, no matter which school you go to. Dull green is a very school-like color, too.

"Good. This completes the gymnastic portion of your physical and mental wellness exercise."

Wow, that's it? I feel like a truck was dropped on me, now that I take the time to notice. My senses are all a little screwy, and my arms are stiff. I straighten one abruptly and the elbow clicks loudly. Hurts like hell now, that was a bad idea.

"There is a framed painting on the wall. Please go stand in front of it." I do. "This is art." So's the palm tree print on the walls, but okay. "When you hear a buzzer, stare at the art."

 _Bzzt._

I can appreciate this painting, if only because I've been trapped for so long that a lonely cabin filled with flies and spiders seems like the better option - not that there is an option, of course. If there was, I wouldn't be here.

"You should now feel mentally reinvigorated. If you suspect staring at art has not provided the required intellectual sustenance, reflect briefly on this classical music."

I hate classical music. I've heard it for all of three seconds and I hate it. It's so distracting that I can't think, but listening to it isn't satisfying like music should be. I definitely prefer jazz.

 _Bzzt._

Well, they have comedic timing down, at least.

"Good. Now, please return to your bed."

Screw that. I try the door, but it's locked. I kick the glass, but my fall boots soften the blow, and I'm sure as hell not kicking without them. Instead, I pick up the potted plant by the trunk and swing it like a baseball bat. The pot shatters but the glass holds. It's probably reinforced, which means that I can't get out.

Just to be sure, I tap on the wall. A metallic clang revertebrates around the room.

Guess It's bed time. I'll escape when I've outlasted this room's foundations. How hard can it be?

* * *

I have it a little easier than most prisoners; I can count days by the fifties rather than individually. On the other hand, I literally have to wait for my prison to rot away from around me, and the life support could fail at any time, so it's pretty stressful.

The automated voice broke down somewhere around year twelve, and my hibernations have been getting longer ever since. The curtains rotted away at some point, and the carpet's become even duller and patchier. I can't see out of the window, and I don't know if that's because of some kind of dust on the other side, or if it's just pitch black.

Most people would have broken down long before, but I'm patient, and I'm also far too stubborn to not walk between this place's rotten bars. Literally waiting for my prison to dissolve has to be the most badass thing I've ever done.

I punch the door. I've done that every time I've woken up since year three. Maybe some day it'll fall off its hinges.

"Good moo-oo-oo-oo zzz :999999999999: days," Chip says. He's basically dead by now, maybe I should put him out of his misery.

There's a frantic knocking on the door. I ignore it. That door's metallic just like the rest of this place, and the knocking sounds wooden. Nobody's actually there.

Maybe that thing that I destroyed was an actual AI, I muse. I've been sitting on this one for too long. I don't have any evidence either way, but I don't think anyone from Aperture would try to fake the creation of AI. They'd have been found out and probably fired immediately for obstructing the cause of science. Besides, what else but an AI could keep this place running for so long? I think all humans may have died out by now.

At the very least, nobody speaks english. Well, with the advent of the internet, it's difficult to judge that, but even if they speak english it's probably so different that it might as well be another language, with slang and all that.

Holy crap, when I get out, will I be one of those older people who try and fail to sound cool with fifty years out-of-date slang?

In my case, fifty thousand years out-of-date slang. None of my favorite sayings will be taken seriously. Fuck.

I can deal with that. I wonder what else the time gap would have changed.

Wait, what if they have folklore about my time period? That would be so weird! Tales of the pentakill, or museums with microwaves on display, or ancient fossilised remains of cars. That last one would be ironic.

I wonder if they have hover cars and stuff. Or if everyone has a portal gun. Maybe someone raided Aperture and stole their shit.

Yeah, Black Mesa would totally do that. Of course they have portal guns now. Maybe I could sell my prototype version to a museum for millions and pick up the mk XCVII with enough money left over to buy a house.

I head back to bed, excited as I always am. Maybe next time I wake up, I'll punch the door down and get out. It's getting close to collapse, I know that at the very least.

I ignore the banging.

* * *

"Good M _yO **r**_ **n** ing! _Y **o**_ **u** have been in suspension for :9999999999999-zzt."

I'm not kidding, I can hear the full-stop on the end of that static. I think I may be insane.

Most people would wonder if thinking you're insane automatically makes you sane again, but I know better. If you think you're on fire, does that stop you from being on fire?

No. You burn to death.

"Good myorning! Yoou have been in suspension for :9999999999999:"

Wow, Chip's recovering. Good on him.

There's banging on the door again.

"Hello, anyone in there?"

I ignore the voice. It's been here for a while now. I wonder if the person that it belongs to just sits outside my room with nothing better to do when I go to sleep, but then I remember that he doesn't exist.

I punch the door.

The hinges snap.

"W-Bloody hell, I didn't think it was that ba-AH!" The... Thing cuts off in a yell. "Oh, finally. I've been waitin' for you for flippin' years! Literally! On and off, granted, but years nonetheless!"

I blink in shock, unable to form words. I haven't needed to form words for ages. I've been stuck here alone.

"Are you okay?" I open my mouth to reply, but he makes a noise. "Don't! Answer that, I'm absolutely sure you're fine!"

"Prepare for emergency evacuation," Chip says, as calm as I don't feel right now.

"Prepare! That's all it's saying, prepare! There'll be plenty of time for you to relax. Once we're, uh, not here. Anywhere but here's fine, but right here is a bad place to relax. Other places fine, not here. Okay, alright?" I nod dumbly. "Good. Now, I'm gonna get us out of here. Try to hold onto something, word of advice!"

I sit on the bed as the blue-eyed... Reminder, I'm going to call him, since he reminds me of that last fight, ascends through a hatch in the ceiling. I've always wondered what that rail was for.

I look back at the empty doorframe and feel a spike of rage. The reminder killed my awesome exit! What a prick!

That's a fun thing to call someone, prick. I've never called someone that before. At least, I don't remember.

"Are you alright down there?"

Yeah, I reply automatically. Then I realise that I said the right thing, by some miracle. Then I realise that I didn't actually say it. So I say it. "Yeah."

Learn to speak, me.

* * *

 **This just came to me when I was reading, and I couldn't get it out of my head.**

 **As a result, I have a pretty good idea of how most of this will turn out, and it's definitely going to take some turns from the original plot.**

 **I very much wanted Chell to wait until Wheatley made the brain damage joke to speak, but I couldn't think of a decent way. Oh well.**

 **Next time, go team!**


	2. Sitting on a Bed the Wrong Way

**Portal sometimes autocorrects as Poet. Not sure why.**

* * *

"Oh good, you can talk," the reminder lies. I would not classify that as talking at all. Talking involves making actual conversation, and I'm a little out of practice. "I, uh... Admit, that I wasn't exactly expecting you to talk. Years in suspension and all that, tends to rot the brains a little bit..."

"Callin' me dumb?" I piece together, a little annoyed that I can't think of any better words, and the room shudders violently.

"O-of course not! You're about as dumb as I am - which is... Not. Not dumb at all. I mean, technically I don't know you, so I can't make an accurate judgement of your... Cognitive state, but if I had to imagine, I'd say that you are definitely, probably, a smart person."

I mutter "long-winded" under my breath, but he can't hear me. Because it was under my breath. I think my brain's a bit long-winded at the moment.

"Alright," he interrupts my thoughts, "Gonna repeat, because that conversation might have... Dulled the memory a little, you may want to hang onto something. If you don't want to, don't give into my peer pressure, again, entirely up to you. You have the count of-"

Chip interrupts him. "Please begin emergency evacuation. If this facility is not evacuated within ten minutes, the Aperture Science Disaster-Based Disaster-Preemption Initiative will begin. There will be no survivors."

"-Zero, you have the count of zero let's GOGOGOGOGO!"

The floor shifts and if I wasn't still sitting, I would have been sitting anyway by now. With a wrench of metal, a good chunk of the floor and wall is torn away, taking the window with it, and I finally get a view of Aperture.

I was expecting test chambers. Well, I wasn't expecting anything because I wasn't expecting to even see Aperture again for quite a while. But this?

This is awesome.

The grey expanse of Aperture's inner workings has to be seen to be believed, and understood to be fully appreciated. I'm almost tempted to stick my hand out of the room, just to test that it isn't an image on a screen. Instead I bob my head, and the various chambers follow me like they're really there.

The reminder is muttering something, so I call up to him, "How to move this?"

"This?" He asks back, and I ponder my limited vocab.

"This room. Mechanics?"

"Oh, how am I moving the room?" He asks rhetorically. "I'm connected to a rail, see that thing, above your head? Might've broken, but you've looked at the ceiling lotsa times, so I'm certain that you remember it. Anyway, I go along that rail, and I've connected my rail mechanism to the room's rail mechanism, so that when I move, the room moves too! Forward and backwards, really all I've got to work with at the moment, but don't worry! I'm ce- I'm sure we'll make do!"

"Make do," I reply in acceptance. I feel like I should be panicking by now, but imagining my own death so many times before has desensitised me a little.

The room tilts forwards, and I scramble until I find myself sitting on the side of my bed, which is thankfully bolted down. The remains of some kind of pottery, along with a box TV that was bolted to the wall, aren't so lucky. I'll never find them, not that I care.

"Oh, see-I hit that one, I hit that one," he berates himself and the room swings back to its original position and carries on its way. "Okay, I didn't wanna mention it, but you're my life-line here, uh... In a sense. The reserve power went out, so of course the relaxation centre starts waking up the bloody test subjects!"

I spot two boxes in front of us, and have a few seconds to call out, seconds that I foolishly waste, and the room lurches again as the two open corners of the room are torn apart even more than they were. I'm slowly losing space to stand.

"And why should anyone tell me about it? 'Hey, tiny ball with the broken eye, the test subjects are dying!' Even that would've been fine! Rude, but in the end it wouldn't have mattered, because I could've saved everyone!"

I was under the impression that I was the only one here.

"On a related note, are you still doing okay? Apart from the obvious fact that I can... Save you, and all that, leaving absolutely everyone to die would damage my credibility a little. No witnesses to convince them that I didn't, uh, kill you all, in cold blood. Oil. Cold oil. I didn't save you specifically for that purpose, but 'eyy, I'm an opportunist! What can I say?"

So this guy isn't entirely selfless. Good to know. Either he's lying to give himself the advantage, or he's telling the truth and keeping me alive is his advantage. Either way, he's not as good as most might presume.

Robots are evil. Rule one basic storytelling. They always have something against how imperfect humans are, or how they play god, or a bunch of other stuff that makes no sense whatsoever.

Like the AI thing that I killed. Someone made it or her, whatever - but they aren't around now. They're dead. I think she said something about neurotoxin.

Deadly neurotoxin. It wasn't just mild, force-you-to-smile-until-you-hate-everything neurotoxin, it was straight up deadly. And she wouldn't shut up about it either. I think I'm deader from listening than I would be from inhaling it.

While I was thinking, I probably answered. Good. What I answered with, I don't remember. "Okay, just tell my if you feel lightheaded or your heart stopping! I think there's something in the air, asbestos maybe! Hey, I think that's a docking station," he breaks off, and I look at the gigantic words on the wall: Docking Station 600m Below.

"Below!"

"It's below us?" He translates. "Great news! Okay, I'm gonna attempt a manual override on this wall, could get a bit technical. Really do hold on this time, I know what I said about peer pressure, but if someone told you to jump _on_ a bridge, would you do it?"

There's a pause. "Okay, poorly worded, but do you understand what I'm trying to convey here?"

"...Hold on."

"Great, see this is what we need more of, healthy communication! Also hacking, much more hacking, of this wall. Hold on tight!"

The room shudders and I shudder with it as the memory- no wait, the reminder, rams it into the wall. Panels fall into the abyss below us and the bed slides with a screech of rusty iron.

Wait, how does a regular bed put me into suspension?

Questions for never, since it's been keeping me alive. Watching it plummet from the room is a little too real, and I have to sit down for a moment. On the floor.

My everything hurts.

"Nearly there, nearly there! Listen, you're looking for a gun that makes holes! Not bullet holes, but..."

"Portal?" Something about that word in particular seems significant, but for now the impulse eludes me.

The reminder gives me a few words of encouragement that I barely hear as I jump through the broken glass into a... Familiar room.

* * *

 **Capturing Wheatley's speech without making it unbearable to read is really difficult, but I think I managed it pretty nicely. It's really fun to write the actual dialogue though, he's the kind of character you can turn into a living tangent and still have him entirely in character.**

 **Chell's a little insane still, much more than in canon since she's been aware that she's been alone for who knows how long, and her mind isn't in a perfect state. She should recover just fine, given time.**

 **Next time, I might skip to when Wheatley finds Chell again. The tests in between would be difficult to explain in text.**


End file.
